SoftBank stock up 12% as Iran-U.S. peace deal sends Asia stocks soaring
SK Hynix Inc.’s 12-layer HBM3E memory chips, its front end, and an LPDDR5X CAMM2 memory module were held at the company’s office in Seongnam, South Korea, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.
Seong Joon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asian technology stocks rose on Monday as investors cheered news that Iran and the United States had reached an agreement to end the Middle East conflict.
Japanese technology investor SoftBank With an increase of over 12%, it became the best performing company among Asia’s major technology stocks. Tokyo Electron Advantest increased by 9.19% and 7.69% respectively.
South Korea’s Kospi Index saw memory chip giants and heavyweights in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix gain 4.65% and 6.42% respectively.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) rose 2.16%, while Hon Hai Precision, also known as Foxconn, rose 2.5%.
Softbank, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have generally made big gains in recent weeks. Last month, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each surpassed $1 trillion in market cap, while SoftBank recently became Japan’s most valuable company.
These moves followed risk appetite on expectations that the conflict in the Middle East could soon end after the United States and Iran reached a peace agreement.
Both Iran and the United States have reached an agreement in which both sides declared an immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Sunday. He said that the official signing ceremony will be held in Switzerland on Friday, June 19. Pakistan acted as a mediator between the two countries.
US President Donald Trump said that “the agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran has now been completed”, which provides for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without a toll system, and that the US will end the naval blockade of Iran. Real Social mail “Earth Ships, start your engines,” Trump said. Let the oil flow!”
The broader technology space has performed quite well, according to Ecaterina Bigos, BNP Paribas Asset Management’s chief investment officer for core investments in Asia and Japan.
“Because it’s important to remember that investors are trying to rebalance parts of portfolios, but they still want to stay in the AI race,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
Broad Asian markets also rose on Monday, buoyed by signs of an end to the conflict in the Middle East.
